Buddhism is a religion that places great emphasis
on environmental protection. Sakyamuni Buddha was born at Lumbini Garden.
He engaged in spiritual practice in the forest, attained Buddhahood under
a tree, and first began preaching at Deer Park. The major monasteries where
he taught his disciples were all gardens or woods, such as Jeta Grove,
Bamboo Grove, Amravana Garden, and he passed into pari-nirvana between
two Sal trees near Kusinagara. He exhorted his monastic disciples, when
spending the night under a tree, to regard that place as his home and take
loving care of it.

The Buddha told us in the sutras and precepts
that we should take loving care of animals, and that we should not harm
the grass and trees, but regard them as the home where sentient beings
lead their lives. In the stories of the Buddha's past lives, when he was
following the Bodhisattva path, he was once reborn as a bird. During a
forest fire, he tried fearlessly to put out the fire, disregarding his
own safety by bringing water with his feathers. In the Avatamsaka Sutra
it is said that mountains, waters, grass, and trees are all the manifestation
of the great bodhisattvas. So, Buddhists believe that both sentient beings
and non-sentient things are all the Dharma-body of the buddhas. Not only
do the yellow flowers and green bamboo preach Buddhist teachings, but rocks
can also understand Buddhist doctrines. Therefore, Buddhists regard our
living environment as their own bodies. The Buddhists' life of spiritual
practice is by all means very simple, frugal, and pure.

Unfortunately, the immoderate development and
the excessive use of chemicals in the world have led to the rapid consumption
of natural resources, the speedy deterioration of the natural environment,
and the extinction of a variety of species. The collective result speeds
the earth towards doomsday. Although no human being hopes for the early
arrival of doomsday, few are willing to strive together to take action
to salvage the destiny of the earth, despite the fact that most are conscious
of the crisis. Day in and day out everyone still consumes even larger amounts
of natural resources, produces more refuse to pollute the earth, the air,
and rivers and oceans. The remaining tracts of tropical rain forest become
smaller and smaller; the number of species likewise decreases, and desertification
of the land expands at a faster rate. If this situation is not placed in
check and reversed, then humankind will have become extinct even before
the earth is destroyed.

In the modern world, everybody knows that we should
protect our living environment, reduce the amount of garbage we produce,
classify our refuse, and recycle as much as possible. Nevertheless, we
are still consuming substantial amounts of energy resources every day,
and producing tremendous amounts of refuse and pollution. In the former
agricultural and pastoral ages, garbage could become the fertilizer and
soil, returning to nature; in contrast, the natural resources consumed
by the modern industrial and commercial sector are non-renewable. Contemporary
civilization produces a huge amount of pollution, and this act is as horrible
as generating a tremendous quantity of cancer cells in the body of Nature.

We do not curse modern industry and commerce;
neither do we denounce the rapid development of technological production.
Therefore, we are forced to appeal to the religious and spiritual leaders
of the world to advise all humankind that it must take responsibility to
protect the environment while engaged in industrial, commercial, and technological
activities. Human beings should not, just because of their curiosity for
technological innovations and the competition of industrial and commercial
wealth, keep on destroying the environment on which we rely for our survival;
otherwise, humankind's history will not endure another thousand years!

The wasteful consumption of natural resources
and destruction of ecology are caused by humankind's psychological craving
for convenience and wealth. If we can practice the Buddha's teaching of
"leading a contented life with few desires" and "being satisfied and therefore
always happy", and if we are willing to use our intelligence to deal with
problems and engage diligently in productive work, then, without having
to contend with one another or fight with nature, we can lead very happy
lives. Therefore, the members of our organization use the following four
sentences to encourage one another:

Our needs are little;Our wants are great.Pursue only what we really need;What we want is unimportant.

If, for the sake of satisfying our wants, humankind
consumes natural resources and devastates the ecological environment, then
we repeatedly borrow to repay what we already owe. By borrowing to cover
old debts, one's debts will grow increasingly heavy; by cutting out one's
flesh to appease one's hunger, one is slowly committing suicide. Unfortunately,
humankind loses its head for the sake of temporary convenience and selfish
gains. Some say that future technology will be able to rectify the errors
caused by modern people. Supposedly, this future technology will be able
to solve the problems resulting from contemporary technology. Further,
they say if one group of people causes problems, another group of people
will manage to deal with them. They imply that the act of destruction should
come first before humankind achieves more advanced insight. These are extremely
irresponsible concepts. While engaging in various kinds of production and
manufacturing, if modern people do not at the same time pay close attention
to measures for protecting the environment and cherishing their resources,
this amounts to burying mines everywhere in the environment to menace future
generations of humankind. So, we have to appeal to the religious and spiritual
leaders of the whole world not only to pray for the success of environmental
work, but also to get involved personally in the all-encompassing movement
of environmental protection.

As I said, the environmental protection movement
should be all-encompassing. In addition to cherishing natural resources,
protecting the ecological environment, and lifestyle choices such as reducing
the amount of garbage, recycling, living a pure, simple, and, frugal life,
and minimizing the pollution we produce, we should further learn to respect
lives and others, always reminding ourselves of this thought: apart from
ourselves, there are innumerable other people; apart from our one generation,
there are our innumerable descendants in future generations.

Therefore, Dharma Drum Mountain, our small Buddhist
community of only about one million members, has in the last ten years
promoted four major principles of environmental protection:

1) The cherishing of natural resources and the
protection of the ecological environment;

2) Maintaining cleanliness in family life and
using daily necessities simply and frugally;

3) Improving interpersonal politeness and social
etiquette; and,

4) Instead of considering everything from the
standpoint of one person, one race, one time-period, and one place, we
should consider it from the standpoint that all humankind of all time and
space should be protected in their existence, possess the right to live,
and feel the dignity of life.

In brief, the above-mentioned four kinds of environmentalism
can be restated as natural environmentalism, lifestyle environmentalism,
social etiquette environmentalism, and spiritual environmentalism. The
environmental tasks of general people are mostly restricted to the material
aspects, namely, the first and second items. The environmental tasks we
carry out have to go deeper from the material level to the spiritual level
of society and thinking. Environmental protection must be combined with
our respective religious beliefs and philosophical thinking into an earnest
mission, so that environmentalism will not become mere slogans. So, strictly
speaking, the purification of humankind's mind and heart is more important
than the purification of the environment. If our mind is free from evil
intentions and is not polluted by the surroundings, our living environment
will also not be spoilt and polluted by us. However, for ordinary people,
it is advisable to set out by cultivating the habit of protecting the material
environment, and go deeper step by step until at last they can cultivate
environmentalism on the spiritual level.

08/31/2000working session on environmental protection at
the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel